Oscar's Trash Race 10-20-82 WIP

[Wickeycolumbus]

Hey guys! Thought I'd share an early Christmas present with you all. I bought this early WIP of Oscar a couple month's back, and finally got the chance to give it a good look. What really made me interested in this particular prototype is that it is dated much earlier than the current earliest known version. That version is just a static screen shot that was used by marketing (see version 12/03/82). Ironically this is my second WIP Oscar protoype, and I don't even have a copy of the released product

 

Here are some shots of the cartridge. When I first tried to put it into a system, it would not insert properly so I opened it up to test it. I saw that one of the EPROMs had a part of it chipped off and was worried that it was ruined. Luckily it still works.

 

 

The game is maybe about 50 - 60% complete, though it is pretty different from the released game. Almost a different game. There are 8 game variations, 1 and 2 are single player and 3 - 8 are two player simultaneously. In the released game there are two player options, but not simultaneously as far as I know. There isn't all that much game play implemented but it is somewhat playable. It is also pretty buggy, for example in the single player modes, I have not found a way to go on after a round has been completed.

 

The controls are pretty simple, you repeatedly press the button in the middle column of the keyboard controller corresponding to the trash can with the number of garbage blocks on it. Once you gather the garbage you continue pressing it until the garbage is thrown in the can and you walk off the screen. A different element in this game is that in two player modes, the second player can tag the player that collected the garbage before they put it in the can. This will cause both players to walk off the screen and no points are awarded. This could be where the 'Trash Race' part of the title comes from. Games seem to end after 5 points.

 

There is only slight variation in the game modes, some of them almost seem the same. Some differences are the truck letting all pieces of trash out at the same time rather than one by one, and another is automatic movement of player 2 rather than repeated button pressing. It also seems that sometimes the CPU will control player 2.

 

 

Anyway, here is the ROM. Please share your discoveries and theories

 

Oscar10-20-82.bin

 

[jhd]

I think that it is especially interesting when there are multiple prototype/WIP versions of a game -- it is then possible to see how it has evolved over the course of its development.

[bennybingo]

Hey guys! Thought I'd share an early Christmas present with you all. I bought this early WIP of Oscar a couple month's back, and finally got the chance to give it a good look. What really made me interested in this particular prototype is that it is dated much earlier than the current earliest known version. That version is just a static screen shot that was used by marketing (see version 12/03/82). Ironically this is my second WIP Oscar protoype, and I don't even have a copy of the released product

 

Here are some shots of the cartridge. When I first tried to put it into a system, it would not insert properly so I opened it up to test it. I saw that one of the EPROMs had a part of it chipped off and was worried that it was ruined. Luckily it still works.

 

P1020396.JPG

P1020401.JPG

 

The game is maybe about 50 - 60% complete, though it is pretty different from the released game. Almost a different game. There are 8 game variations, 1 and 2 are single player and 3 - 8 are two player simultaneously. In the released game there are two player options, but not simultaneously as far as I know. There isn't all that much game play implemented but it is somewhat playable. It is also pretty buggy, for example in the single player modes, I have not found a way to go on after a round has been completed.

 

The controls are pretty simple, you repeatedly press the button in the middle column of the keyboard controller corresponding to the trash can with the number of garbage blocks on it. Once you gather the garbage you continue pressing it until the garbage is thrown in the can and you walk off the screen. A different element in this game is that in two player modes, the second player can tag the player that collected the garbage before they put it in the can. This will cause both players to walk off the screen and no points are awarded. This could be where the 'Trash Race' part of the title comes from. Games seem to end after 5 points.

 

There is only slight variation in the game modes, some of them almost seem the same. Some differences are the truck letting all pieces of trash out at the same time rather than one by one, and another is automatic movement of player 2 rather than repeated button pressing. It also seems that sometimes the CPU will control player 2.

 

P1020404.JPG

P1020407.JPG

P1020405.JPG

 

Anyway, here is the ROM. Please share your discoveries and theories

 

Oscar10-20-82.bin

 

You should send Tempest a PM (if you haven't already)…he loves this sort of stuff!

[Tempest]

Really cool stuff! Reminds me how there are two different versions of Snow White. I wonder why they scrapped this one?

 

I'll try and get this reviewed before I leave for the holidays, but no promises.

[Tempest]

I can't seem to get the controls to work in Stella. I'll have to try this on real hardware tonight.

[Wickeycolumbus]

You probably have to force keyboard controllers since the ROM won't be automatically recognized.

[Tempest]

Any idea how to do that?

[Tempest]

I figured it out but it won't save the controller setting option.

[Tempest]

I got it working, but the colors are off in the emulator. No idea why.

[Wickeycolumbus]

I got it working, but the colors are off in the emulator. No idea why.

 

That could be more because of my TV and 2600. I usually get different colors than in Stella, and it changes between TVs and 2600 consoles. For me, the background shows up brownish in Stella, but pretty green on real hardware.

[Tempest]

Nope I get the same results as you. Must be something not being detected right in Stella. Page is up BTW.

[Wickeycolumbus]

Awesome, thanks for posting the review so quickly

[Tempest]

Let me know if I missed anything. Strangely I find it hard to review children games.

[Wickeycolumbus]

I think that it is especially interesting when there are multiple prototype/WIP versions of a game -- it is then possible to see how it has evolved over the course of its development.

 

 

Really cool stuff! Reminds me how there are two different versions of Snow White. I wonder why they scrapped this one?

 

 

This is one of the reasons I think that these children's games are interesting as far as prototypes go. You always hear stories from programmers of how the marketing people at Atari were out of their minds with their demands and design changes. I think this was amplified a great deal when it came to these children's games because it was a new market that they thought they could get a lot of new business out of. Not to mention creating future consumers of their other products. In general, I think there were more people collaborating on them than an average 2600 game.

 

On a somewhat unrelated note, I show these games to my two year old niece and she absolutely loves Peek-A-Boo. Requests to play it every time I see her

[Rom Hunter]

Many thanks, Wickey!